A Better Future
I don’t know who it was who said, “Every generation makes the mistake of assuming it lives at the most important time in history,” but it’s a healthy corrective. No, previous generations have been through worse than we’re enduring. And those generations emerged with enough optimism to dream of a better future and enough energy to start building it.
Michael Frost
Trauma
“People often think of trauma as a discrete event — a fire, getting mugged,” said Daphne de Marneffe, author of an excellent book about marriage called “The Rough Patch” and one of the most astute psychologists I know. “But what it’s really about is helplessness, about being on the receiving end of forces you can’t control. Which is what we have now. It’s like we’re in an endless car ride with a drunk at the wheel. No one knows when the pain will stop.”
The Battle Against Evil
…the battle against evil cannot be reduced to using power against it. Power used even in a just cause is only going to perpetuate evil. But it increasingly seems that this is the path our world is taking, the Good using power against the Bad. Using power in a just cause.
R Beck
A God who wears sandals
God stands among you and you do not recognize him because you do not know him. He stands among you in the midst of the crowd, unrecognized, hidden in the ordinary; in the frail frame of a human person. God is not in the temple. God is not some noumenal presence in the air creating a spiritual atmosphere in which people can experience him. No. God is somewhere in the crowd. He has a face. And he is wearing sandals.
Remember, God is a human being.
J D Walt
Christians and conspiracies
…the fact that Christians seem extra open to conspiracies does reveal that something is deeply broken in how people of faith are spreading their worldview. When Christianity is set up as a cultural battle instead of an opportunity to serve, others are seen not as people in need of love but enemies who need to be feared and mistrusted.
https://relevantmagazine.com/god/church/why-are-so-many-christians-falling-for-qanon/
Money
…money is a tool, a means toward an end, the created good itself. But due to money’s liquidity and fungibility, we stop using money as a tool and begin pursing money as an end in itself. Instead of seeking an experience of God’s goodness and grace in created gifts, our goal becomes simply to get money, and more of it.
Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy – Mary Hirshfeld
Self Censorship
To break this cycle [self-censorship], we can’t just ask lone individuals to stand up in any given group. How many of us can make a habit of standing alone? No, we have to join the “voice of sanity” as the “one compatriot.” Do not let dissenters twist in the wind—stand up for their dignity when you disagree. Stand up for their argument when you agree. Because we have met the enemies of free speech, and they’re not the distant “other,” but the people in our own social circles who impose a direct and immediate relational cost on those who speak their minds.
David French
Struggles
.. know that there is no such thing as life without struggle. There is no one, not anyone, who escapes the soul-wrenching experiences that stretch the mind but threaten to calcify the spirit.
There is no one who has not known what it is to lose in the game of life, to feel defeat, to know humiliation, to be left standing naked and alone before the cold and staring eyes of a world that does not grieve for your grief.
Joan Chittister – Scarred By Struggle – Transformed by Hope
Traffic Lights
“This is a new invention, it’s called a traffic light. When it’s green, you can drive through it. When it’s red, you have to stop and wait for it to turn green.”
“Sounds like the government thinks it knows more than I do about how to drive my own car!”
“Well, people are dying in intersections. At a very sad rate. And getting hurt pretty badly, too. And this is something pretty easy we can all do together to keep people from dying and getting hurt.”
“But I haven’t died in this intersection. And I actually don’t know anyone else who’s died here either. You sure people aren’t maybe, like, falling off their roofs and you’re just saying they died in this intersection? To make us scared so you can control us?”
“People are definitely dying in this very intersection. But just look at the light, and go when it’s green. Stop when it’s red. We’ll add a yellow one so you know when it’s about to turn red.”
“But if I have to stop when it’s red, I won’t get where I’m going as fast. Sounds like you’re infringing on my freedom. Sounds like you don’t want me to get to work to earn a living and you want me to rely on the government for everything.”
“That’s….no. No one wants that. Look, we know no one’s going to like stopping at the red light. It’s going to be a small inconvenience for everyone. But again, if we all do this perfectly, together, we can keep people from dying in this intersection.”
“Well if people are so scared of this intersection, maybe they should just walk! Leave the cars to those of us who don’t want to live in fear!”
“That’s the thing – many of the people dying *are* pedestrians.”
“Look, how about if someone wants to stop at the light they can, but if someone else doesn’t want to stop, they don’t have to. It should be my choice. This is a free country, you know.”
“Again, this will work if everyone does it together. Just one person doing whatever they want has the potential to kill other people.”
Libby Jones
SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!